The future of Tunisia’s film industry—like that of the country itself—is uncertain. Filmmakers prefer stability in their working conditions, and the instability triggered by the revolution has threatened a once reliable industry, which over a generation has evolved its own cultural significance.
When Marlon James announced his follow-up to his Booker-Prize winning novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings, it was met with intense excitement. James is best known as a literary novelist with a reputation for not mincing his words in public. In promotion for his last book, James sparked debate with his comments about the domination of white women as gatekeepers in publishing and his critique on the distinction between white people who identify as nonracist as opposed to antiracist. In the business of literary fiction, writers who speak so directly and bluntly about how power in the industry works are rare and often marginalized. But the honor of the Booker Prize, one of the top prizes in the world, seemed to usher James into the world of publishing respectability.
Just then they were all eating yams, candied and still hot from the stove. Golden-brown pieces glistening with sauce that dripped from the serving spoon as it moved between the bowl and the plates. Heavy sweet pieces that clung to their forks, sank and settled on their tongues and then dissolved in a swirl of rich textures.
The girl’s uncle Todd pushed back his chair and reached for the bowl and a second helping. His broad hands pressed across the table, past his water glass and the ladle of gravy, the tea lights and decorative poinsettia, up and over the enormous ham.
One big expectation of the murder mystery is that the payoff includes some answers, that eventually we learn the truth. The best payoffs are layered, too, so that the revelations include not just who did the deed but how and why—what the motive was, offering a bit of insight into our own natures.
The three-stone fire remains nearly universal among the 3 billion people who rely on solid biomass fuels like firewood, charcoal, and dung. But the three-stone fire is hellishly inefficient, transferring as little as 10 percent of the heat it produces to a pot and the food it holds.
From under a rock in the highlands of Guinea, the Gambia emerges as one of the last untamed great rivers of Africa, winding through three countries on its way to the sea.
The author in his youth. (Courtesy of the author from Mahama Family Albums)
The world maps of my youth were always flat. They depicted an Earth that was stretched and distorted, with no topography, no shaded relief. The only markings were the names [...]
In spring 1985, with everyone’s expectant parents sweating and wedged into the auditorium chairs, it was my appointed task to kick off the school’s year-end performance by plinking out the opening strains of “We Are the World” on the music teacher’s Casio keyboard.
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